Before the winding creek coming down through the carved sand I knelt, to give reverence. And up above, I saw people on the pathway walking back and forth, a bit bothered at this young poet in oblation before the waters, and I sighed … for I knew that if there were simply a sigil of some recognized faith here, they would not question.
“Folk-Catholicism” : say what you will, this was a strategy. Place a saint, place an image of Mary before a stream, before a rock, before a woodland, before a well, before a tree, and let me alone to pray, that I may tend to the spirit within that rock, that tree, that grove, that stream, and be left alone by priests who wonder at what I do. Oh yes, a strategy : to be left alone by the priests that I might kneel and do what the ancestors have done forever, and not be questioned. If the beads of a rosary must be fingered, and a pater noster uttered, this is but the covering. It’s the shell. Don’t mistake the shell for the soft, vital mollusc inside. Folk-Catholicism was but the shell in which inner heathenism, seldom spoken, covered itself.
All we do now is strip off the false shell, and claim in full might, for we no longer have any need to shield from priests who come to kill those who do homage to life’s soul-idols, for now we have sword back, and we may bite back against their bitings. We are free, and free at last to worship as we will!
We are just beginning now to reclaim our ancient ways. We gather the letters of the alphabet like nursery school children, but soon, in time, as this newly-planted tree takes root, and the coming children come beneath its shade, our deeds, our very deeds, shall once again do worship! And this world which has gone so widely awry from its foundations shall return and be restored!
For today, the symbols are raised amongst people who were still raised by those alienated from the powers, and so our deeds and our words are split, our habits based on false foundations, and so we struggle in our worship to come back to source. Oh, it’s true that the life of faultful humans often struggles to come back to the powers, but once, it was much closer, it was much more fidelitous and faithful. That’s where we’re heading.
We’re heading towards that time where we may once again freely bow down before the rock, before the stream, before the oak, before the sky, and give what poetry our heart demands, and not be questioned, and not be ridiculed. In fact, to be respected. And that the answers that we hear in our hearts upon such oblation may be taken with seriousness and with reverence and enter into our sacred counsels as sacred vote and speech.
